EECE552

Contents

Notices

The class room has changed to Fine Arts 351 due to the increasing needs.

Lecture notes and assignments will be released on Blackboard immediately after class.

Welcome to all students who register this course.

Course Description

Although there is no formally agreed definition of the concept of computer architecture, it is generally acceptable to use the description from Wikipedia, “computer architecture is the science and art of selecting, (optimizing) and interconnecting hardware components to create computers that meet functional, performance, and cost goals and the formal modeling of those systems.”

This course will introduce the basic principles and hardware structures of a modern programmable computer. In this course, we will learn, for example, how to design the control and data paths for a pipelined RISC processor, how to design a hierarchical memory system consisting multi-levels of caches and main memory, how to coordinate the cache coherence, and etc. Basically, fundamental (and some advanced) concepts in computer architecture, with a particular focus on microprocessor design, will be presented and reinforced through several projects that design and simulate register-transfer level (RTL) implementations of key components in a RISC processor in Verilog/VHDL.

All course announcements, lecture slides, assignments, and papers to review will be made available at the course web page and Blackboard, please frequently check these sites and contact the instructor if there is any question.